HOLLYWOOD – A December Rasmussen Reports poll found that 46 percent of likely voters believe that “America’s best days are in the past.” That’s up – or down, depending on your frame of reference -- from 35 percent in a similar poll conducted in January 2009.

Patti Perret/Tavis Smiley ReportsJonathan Demme and Tavis Smiley at work in New Orleans on an earlier documentary.

“How do you navigate a country forward when half of your populace thinks that the best days of the nation are behind you?” Tavis Smiley said during the Winter TV Tour. “It’s time for serious conversation, particularly given now that we have a divided government. We are just days away from the halfway point of Mr. Obama’s first term. His State of the Union speech is just about to happen in a matter of weeks, a couple of months.

“The timing could not be more propitious for us to have a conversation about this country and the way forward given the angst, the blues that this country seems to be having and experiencing right about now.”

Smiley, whose nightly PBS talk show airs at 11 p.m. on WYES-Channel 12’s HD feed (Cox communications channel 712), will moderate a panel Thursday (January 13) in Washington, D.C., with those poll results as an organizing idea. C-SPAN is scheduled to carry the “America’s Next Chapter” event live at 5 p.m. (Central). The discussion will be edited for airing on Smiley’s PBS show Jan. 18, 19 and 20.

(Update: WYES announced the day this story was published/posted that its 12.2 digital channel -- carried as the station's HD feed on Cox -- will become the same signal as 12.1, or its main over-the-air service, effective Tuesday (January 18). The 12.2 signal had been a national PBS feed, which carried "The Tavis Smiley Show." Smiley's PBS talk show, including the panel-discussion episodes mentioned in this article, will not be available to New Orleans viewers for the foreseeable future.)

Smiley said the panel’s composition will be as diverse as the audience for his talk show – which has the most diverse viewership composition on PBS, he noted – but pointedly will not contain a representative from Washington officialdom.

“Respectfully, no politicians,” he said. “I want people to be free and open about what they have to say in this conversation and … not be worried about the Tea Party coming after you.”

Still, Jared Loughner’s murderous rampage in Tucson, Ariz. – the target of which was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords – and the ensuing national conversation about coarse political discourse in America is sure to be a topic of discussion at the forum.

“I can’t imagine that it’s not going to comeup,” said Smiley, who’s been in the TV-forefront in continuing coverage of New Orleans’ recovery from Hurricane Katrina and the failed-levee flooding. “And I hope we are going to get some time to really, really talk to the American public about the role that each of us plays in elevating the discourse. And that’s just not for politicians. It’s not just for the media, but it’s for everyday people. I fret. The Internet is a wonderful place, and I’m swimming in it every day like everybody else is. But the hate and the venom and the lack of fact-checking and the lack of responsibility …

“You can say anything and do anything. And, the sad part, do it all anonymously. (There are) a bunch of cowards on the Internet (who) do everything anonymously. At least tell me who you are. Tell me where you live. I’ll come by and see you, you know? But they do this stuff anonymously, throw rocks and hide their hand. That’s not good.

“Incivility is not good for democracy. And we can laugh about this or poo-poo it or just kind of walk around it, but this kind of incivility is not good for our democracy long-term.”

Most troublesome to Smiley is that the weekend’s horrific gun violence was front-page and top-of-newscast because of who the victims were.

“It’s breaking news everywhere when it’s a congresswoman, when it’s a federal judge,” he said. “Do you know how many folk in New Orleans and beyond are subjected to living in crime-ridden neighborhoods every single day? And it never makes the front page. Wolf Blitzer ain’t breaking in with live coverage for that.”

Smiley is realistic about this week’s rhetorical aftermath of the Tucson massacre. There’s a distinction to be made, he said, between optimism and hope.

“Optimism suggests there’s a particular set of facts, circumstances or conditions, something you can see, feel, or touch, that gives you reason to believe that things are going to get better,” he said. “Hope is having evidence. (Hope) is believing that things can get better even when the evidence isn’t there, kind of like faith. I’m hopeful that we can turn this moment into something meaningful, but I’m not optimistic about it. Hopeful but not optimistic.”

Smiley sees three American sectors – and they’re pretty much all there is – as culprits. One is politicians.

“There’s no doubt about the fact that our discourse has become too uncivil,” he said. “I think that what we are not doing, though, is unpacking why that incivility exists, and I think there’s enough blame to go around. I think government is to blame; that is to say, our leaders are to blame. I can give you examples of presidents and senate leaders, etc., whose discourse, quite frankly, is just too raunchy even with each other.

“I also think the media is to blame for that. We get so caught up in spinning, in preaching to the choir. Fox (News Channel) is no better than MSNBC. MSNBC is no better than Fox. I’m sure I’ll get in trouble for saying this. The problem is that even on network and on cable, too much of our discourse around issues that are important sinks into the abyss. And so, in the media, all of us are to blame for that.

“And then, finally, the American people. I say there’s blame to go around. You know where hate is spreading the most in this country and spreading the fastest? On the Internet that every one of us uses. I know because I' ve been subjected to it.

“That’s everyday people. That’s our leaders. It’s our media. So that’s why I say that I’m hopeful that this will one day get through to us.

“I’m not optimistic about it, but we have got to raise the level of civility where our discourse is concerned. How we do that -- obviously I’m not an expert -- but I think it starts with every one of us doing our part to be more civil in our discourse with each other.”